Crash

Seagrave flicked at his son's minuscule penis. 'Shove it up her arse. Hash first, make a tight little suppository, then ramrod it home. Two trips for the price of one.' He peered reflectively at his grimy hands. 'I'd like to get them all in those cars we have to drive. What do you think of that, Vaughan?'

'We will, one day.' There was a surprising hint of deference in Vaughan's voice as he looked down at the stunt-driver. 'We'll do that.'

'With those cheap bloody harnesses we have to wear.' Seagrave drew on the loosely packed cigarette Vaughan passed to him. He held the smoke in his lungs as he stared at the mountain of derelict cars at the bottom of his garden. 'Can you see them, Vaughan, in one of those high-speed pile-ups? Doing a really groovy rollover. Or a hard head-on job. I dream about that. It's your whole thing, Vaughan.'

Vaughan smiled reassuringly, a metallic grimace. 'You're right, of course. Who do we start with?'

Seagrave smiled through the smoke. He ignored his wife, who was trying to calm him, and stared with level eyes at Vaughan. 'I know who I'd start with…'

'Maybe.'

'… I can see those big tits cut up on the dash.'

Vaughan turned away abruptly, almost as if he were afraid of Seagrave stealing a march on him. The scars on his mouth and forehead carried his face beyond ordinary feeling. He glanced at the other sofa, where his television producer and the crippled young woman, Gabrielle, were passing a cigarette to and fro.

I turned to go, deciding to wait for Helen in my car. Vaughan followed me through the door. He held my arm in a strong grip.

'Don't leave yet, Ballard, I want you to help me.'

As he surveyed the scene I had the sense that Vaughan was controlling us all, giving each of us what we most wanted and most feared.

I followed him down the corridor into a photographic workshop. He beckoned me into the centre of the room, closing the door.

This is the new project, Ballard.' He waved confidently around the room. 'I'm doing a special television series as part of the spin-off.'

'You've left the N.C.L.?'

'Of course – the project is too important.' He shook his head, ridding himself of the association. 'A large government laboratory isn't equipped to handle something like this, psychologically or otherwise.'

Pinned to the walls and lying on the benches among the enamel pails were hundreds of photographs. The floor around the enlarger was littered with half-plate prints, developed and cast aside once they had yielded their images. As Vaughan hunted around the central table, turning the pages of a leatherbound album, I looked down at the discarded prints below my feet. Most of them were crude frontal pictures of motor-cars and heavy vehicles involved in highway collisions, surrounded by spectators and police, and close-ups of impacted radiator grilles and windshields. Many had been taken by an unsteady hand from a moving car, showing the blurred outlines of angry police and ambulance attendants, remonstrating with the cameraman as he swerved past them.

At a first glance no recognizable human figures appeared in these photographs, but on the wall above the metal sink beside the window were the enlarged prints of six middle-aged women. I was struck by their marked resemblance to Vera Seagrave, as she might appear in twenty years' time. They varied from what I guessed was the well-preserved wife of a successful businessman, fox fur around her shoulders, to a menopausal supermarket cashier and an overweight usherette in a braided gaberdine uniform. Unlike the remainder of the photographs, these six pictures had been taken with elaborate care, using a zoom lens trained through windshields and revolving doors.

Vaughan opened the album at random and handed it to me. Leaning back against the door, he watched me as I adjusted the desk lamp.